Still Here

On the thrift store shelf,

dusty and waiting,

the owl

with one eye clear

and one eye cloudy,

like it was looking at me

and at nothing

at the same time,

like it had died

looking at two different things,

and the taxidermist

had decided

not to fix it,

had decided to preserve

the moment of its confusion,

its final moment

frozen

in glass and feathers

and fake branch.

I almost bought it.

I didn't,

but I think about it

every day,

the way it was watching me

with its mismatched eyes,

the way it was dead

and still present,

the way I wanted to own

something that was already

gone,

wanted to take it home

and put it somewhere

where I could look at it

and remember

that some things

can be preserved

exactly as they were,

can be kept

in their moment of strangeness,

in their moment of not knowing,

in their moment of death

that looks almost alive.

I think about that owl

more than I think about

most people,

and I don't know

if that says something about me

or about the owl,

or about the thrift store

where dead things

wait on shelves

for someone to want them,

to claim them,

to say yes,

this dead thing

is what I need

in my life right now,

this thing that is finished

is the thing

I want to keep looking at.

The owl is probably sold.

Someone else bought it.

Someone else is looking at

those mismatched eyes

right now,

and I'm still thinking about it,

still seeing it,

still drawn to the moment

when something stopped living

but didn't stop being

present,

didn't stop being able

to catch your eye

and hold it,

didn't stop mattering

just because

it was dead.